Support for Researchers

Open Calls to Support the Helsinki ICT Community

HIIT supports initiatives to enhance the quality, visibility and impact of research on information technology. These calls are not restricted to the members of the HIIT research programmes, but are open for the whole ICT community. Please apply through this open call if your request matches any of the listed categories. For example, if you would benefit from a head start in a new project while waiting for longer term funding to begin, you can apply for seed funding for the new initiative. The funding decisions will be made monthly by the HIIT Steering Group, and the next deadlines are 8.6.2020, 10.8.2020, 16.9.2020 and 7.10.2020.

Postdoc recruitment

We organise regularly joint Aalto – University of Helsinki postdoc calls with the aim of getting the best possible talents in ICT to Finland. These calls (and the underlying process, involving setting up application forms, summaries and facilitating interviews) are offered as a service to the whole Helsinki ICT community, not just HIIT research programmes. In addition to the postdoc calls, we support identification of new potential candidates by providing funding for inviting them to visit Finland at any time (see the Open Support Call).

HIIT-funded postdocs

If you have an excellent candidate in mind that would fit in one of the HIIT research programmes, please check first the current calls. If no suitable call is open at the moment, we can also consider hiring a postdoc directly. Please start by getting in touch with the programme director(s) concerned. Explain how the candidate would strengthen the programme(s) and which of the research groups would be the most natural home base. After that, you can send a short message to coordinator@hiit.fi. Please include the following data in your message as a single PDF file named “lastnameofthecandidate.pdf”:

Motivation letter from the candidate including a tentative plan for the research work (1-5 pages) in one of the HIIT programmes, and a suggestion for the funding period (and whether other funding sources would be available to support the candidate during part of the period)

CV

List of publications

A transcript of the doctoral studies and degree certificate of the PhD degree

Note that you cannot apply for funding for yourself (for opening a postdoc call), this funding is for a specific postdoc that you think is so excellent that he or she should be recruited in one of the two hosting universities.

The funding decisions are made by the HIIT Steering Group, which meets once per month. Please send your proposal at least one week in advance to give the programme directors some time to study it before the meeting. The next deadlines are 8.6.2020, 10.8.2020, 16.9.2020 and 7.10.2020.

Doctoral education

We are supporting recruitment of new doctoral students candidates via the joint calls organised twice a year by HICT, the Helsinki Doctoral Education Network in ICT. HICT also supports various cross-department and cross-university events for students, and organises additional training for students willing to enhance for example their pitching and presentation skills.

HIIT Programme funding

Funding from the HIIT programmes for e.g. travel and other small expenses can be requested using a web form. The funding needs to be used within the running calendar year, and the decision is made by the relevant HIIT programme director. If your request would also fit in the categories of the Open Support Call, please submit just one application. The HIIT programme directors see all the applications and can choose the most appropriate budget to use.

The current HIIT research programmes are described here. In case you are wondering whether you are a member of any of HIIT’s programmes, this how it goes:

The “old” programmes FCHealth and HAIC-R are based on CoE applications, and the groups belonging to these programmes are listed on the individual programme pages found via the link above.

The new programmes FCAI and HiDATA are more open-ended: if you feel that you are supporting their research agenda, you can consider yourself as a member of these programmes. However, the success of your funding request may depend on how relevant the programme director considers it regarding the mission of the programme.

Getting visitor status for cross-university collaboration

All researchers involved in HIIT are employed by either Aalto University or the University of Helsinki. If you need e.g. access to the computing infrastructure of the other university, contact coordinator@hiit.fi. Please note that the process takes some time and react promptly to notifications of an expiring user account if your existing visitor status has to be renewed.

Advertising your research

Publishing Highlights and other content on this website is an important way of presenting our work to a bigger audience. Please contribute! This website has been renewed recently and is now hosted by an external company. Making updates requires a separate user account, so please send your contribution to coordinator@hiit.fi, who will take care of publishing the text. Please include a picture (or pictures or videos)! We can also help you in preparing a press release.

Publishing websites in HIIT’s domain

Websites of e.g. research projects and conferences can be published in HIIT’s domain. There are a number of options depending on what you need and what kind of tools you wish to use. Please contact coordinator@hiit.fi for details.

Software

HIIT has institutional licenses for Overleaf and MuJoCo. Overleaf enables collaborative editing of LaTeX documents in the web browser, and MuJoCo is an advanced physics simulator. Please contact coordinator@hiit.fi if you are interested in using these tools.